News Summary

• The New Dark Ages: The End of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-Literate Society by James Marriott Bodley Head (2026) The thriller novelist Dan Brown writes books that some critics complain are for people who don’t read books.
• In Marriott’s telling, book readers are better-informed, happier people who contribute more to a rational rules- and evidence-based society.
• Reading built the modern world, and helped to create science, democracy and reason.
• But books are now dying, and as reading declines, so does the ability to think rationally.